The 2006 Union-Industries Show

Join Sweatshop Baseball organizers at the 2006 Union Label, “America Works,” Convention in Cleveland May 5-7.  Pittsburghers are organizing a caravan.  Email nosweatshopsbucco@yahoo.com for details about our caravan and to meet up in Cleveland.  We need the support of the union label conventioneers to move Major League Sports and we the labor union movement needs the educational capacity of the Union Label Committee to drop the Buy America themes and burst forward with a sincere message of International Solidarity.

Kenneth Miller is urging members of the IWW’s Industrial Classification Committee to come to this conference and caucus to discuss what challenges the IWW’s ICC faces.  Let’s talk to union people about the real jurisdictional issues facing the world labor movement and bring to bear all that the One Big Union really has to offer.  What an opportunity this is to meet with manufacturing workers and review educational materials.  Let’s evaluate here where American labor movement is and where we have to go.  Let’s ask these conference participants to target their baseball teams and demand justice for apparel industry workers all over the world. 

Kertes and Carl attended the SweatFree All Star Workshop at the Conference and their human rights organizing framework was a breath of fresh air that for the whole conference.  Join the March Against Poverty to Camden Yards on June 24 and help us make Peter DeAngelos “unwelcome” in Pittsburgh during the All Star Game in Pittsburgh.  Read more about the United Workers Assocation and their organizing of day laborers in Baltimore.  http://unitedworkersassociation.org/index.html

The 2006 Union-Industries Show rolls into Cleveland, Ohio’s I-X Center, May 5 –7 with a new name and new sharper focus.

The show will be promoted under the name America@Work, followed by the tag-line: “100% Union-Made, American-Made Products, Services and Jobs.” Exit surveys from the 2005 show revealed that more than half the show attendees are not union members but favored unions. They viewed the show as a chance to demonstrate their support for unions, to investigate job and training opportunities and to and learn about union-made products and services.

“America @ Work is a catchy name with a modern feel,” explains ULSTD President Charlie Mercer.

The Show will also focus more on educating the public about trade unionism and the role  unions play in the economic and political life of the community. The Show will highlight (and encourage people to join) vital pro-worker organizations, including the Alliance for Retired Americans and Working America.

“Cleveland could be our biggest show ever,” Mercer said. “This is a heavily unionized, densely populated area. The I-X Center is conveniently located near several large highways connecting dozens of towns and cities, like Columbus, Akron, Canton and Toledo.”

The Show will have more convenient hours, too--running 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (closing one hour later than before) and 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Sunday. (The Show will no longer run on Monday, a day that has rarely drawn large crowds.)

“We are excited to be working closely with the Ohio AFL-CIO and the Cleveland Federation of Labor and all the individual unions across Ohio. This region is full of fine unionized companies with great products and services, and the public is going to learn a great deal about them. The public will also learn a lot about the Alliance for Retired Americans, Working America and the important political and organizing work of our unions are doing. That, too, is a very exciting and promising development,” Mercer said.

Schedule for Union Label Show:  http://www.americaatwork2006.com/events.htm